The Silkworm

The situation was deeply familiar. How often had he sat opposite a woman who was irritated by his lateness, his divided attention, his casualness? But here, at least, it was being played out in a minor key. If he had been late for dinner with Charlotte and taken a call from another woman as soon as he had arrived he might have expected a face full of wine and flying crockery. That thought made him feel more kindly towards Nina.

“Detectives make shit dates,” he told her as he sat down.

“I wouldn’t say ‘shit,’” she replied, softening. “I don’t suppose it’s the sort of job you can leave behind.”

She was watching him with her huge mouse-like eyes.

“I had a nightmare about you last night,” she said.

“Getting off to a flying start, aren’t we?” said Strike, and she laughed.

“Well, not really about you. We were together looking for Owen Quine’s intestinal tract.”

She took a big swig of wine, gazing at him.

“Did we find it?” Strike asked, trying to keep things light.

“Yes.”

“Where? I’ll take any leads at this point.”

“In Jerry Waldegrave’s bottom desk drawer,” said Nina and he thought he saw her repress a shudder. “It was horrible, actually. Blood and guts when I opened it…and you hit Jerry. It woke me up, it was so real.”

She drank more wine, not touching her food. Strike, who had already taken several hearty mouthfuls (far too much garlic, but he was hungry), felt he was being insufficiently sympathetic. He swallowed hastily and said:

“Sounds creepy.”

“It’s because of what was on the news yesterday,” she said, watching him. “Nobody realized, nobody knew he’d—he’d been killed like that. Like Bombyx Mori. You didn’t tell me,” she said, and a whiff of accusation reached him through the garlic fumes.

“I couldn’t,” said Strike. “It’s up to the police to release that kind of information.”

“It’s on the front page of the Daily Express today. He’d have liked that, Owen. Being a headline. But I wish I hadn’t read it,” she said, with a furtive look at him.

He had met these qualms before. Some people recoiled once they realized what he had seen, or done, or touched. It was as though he carried the smell of death on him. There were always women who were attracted by the soldier, the policeman: they experienced a vicarious thrill, a voluptuous appreciation at the violence a man might have seen or perpetrated. Other women were repelled. Nina, he suspected, had been one of the former, but now that the reality of cruelty, sadism and sickness had been forced on her she was discovering that she might, after all, belong in the second camp.

“It wasn’t fun at work yesterday,” she said. “Not after we heard that. Everyone was…It’s just, if he was killed that way, if the killer copied the book…It limits the possible suspects, doesn’t it? Nobody’s laughing about Bombyx Mori anymore, I can tell you that. It’s like one of Michael Fancourt’s old plots, back when the critics said he was too grisly…And Jerry’s resigned.”

“I heard.”

“I don’t know why,” she said restlessly. “He’s been at Roper Chard ages. He’s not being himself at all. Angry all the time, and he’s usually so lovely. And he’s drinking again. A lot.”

She was still not eating.

“Was he close to Quine?” Strike asked.

“I think he was closer than he thought he was,” said Nina slowly. “They’d worked together quite a long time. Owen drove him mad—Owen drove everyone mad—but Jerry’s really upset, I can tell.”

“I can’t imagine Quine enjoying being edited.”

“I think he was tricky sometimes,” said Nina, “but Jerry won’t hear a word against Owen now. He’s obsessed by his breakdown theory. You heard him at the party, he thinks Owen was mentally ill and Bombyx Mori wasn’t really his fault. And he’s still raging against Elizabeth Tassel for letting the book out. She came in the other day to talk about one of her other authors—”

“Dorcus Pengelly?” Strike asked, and Nina gave a little gasp of laughter.

“You don’t read that crap! Heaving bosoms and shipwrecks?”

“The name stuck in my mind,” said Strike, grinning. “Go on about Waldegrave.”

“He saw Liz coming and slammed his office door as she walked past. You’ve seen it, it’s glass and he nearly broke it. Really unnecessary and obvious, it made everyone jump out of their skins. She looks ghastly,” added Nina. “Liz Tassel. Awful. If she’d been on form, she’d have stormed into Jerry’s office and told him not to be so bloody rude—”

“Would she?”

“Are you crazy? Liz Tassel’s temper is legendary.”

Nina glanced at her watch.

“Michael Fancourt’s being interviewed on the telly this evening; I’m recording it,” she said, refilling both their glasses. She still had not touched her food.

“Wouldn’t mind watching that,” said Strike.

She threw him an oddly calculating look and Strike guessed that she was trying to assess how much his presence was due to a desire to pick her brains, how much designs on her slim, boyish body.